[Paul Clifford<br> Complete by Edward Bulwer-Lytton]@TWC D-Link book
Paul Clifford
Complete

CHAPTER III
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The critic having recited to her a considerable portion of Propria qum Maribus, the good lady had no longer a doubt of his capacities for teaching; and on the other hand, when Mrs.Lobkins entered on the subject of remuneration, the Scotsman professed himself perfectly willing to teach any and every thing that the most exacting guardian could require.

It was finally settled that Paul should attend Mr.MacGrawler two hours a day; that Mr.MacGrawler should be entitled to such animal comforts of meat and drink as the Mug afforded, and, moreover, to the weekly stipend of two shillings and sixpence,--the shillings for instruction in the classics, and the sixpence for all other humanities; or, as Mrs.Lobkins expressed it, "two bobs for the Latin, and a site for the vartue." Let not thy mind, gentle reader, censure us for a deviation from probability in making so excellent and learned a gentleman as Mr.Peter MacGrawler the familiar guest of the lady of the Mug.

First, thou must know that our story is cast in a period antecedent to the present, and one in which the old jokes against the circumstances of author and of critic had their foundation in truth; secondly, thou must know that by some curious concatenation of circumstances neither bailiff nor bailiff's man was ever seen within the four walls continent of Mrs.
Margery Lobkins; thirdly, the Mug was nearer than any other house of public resort to the abode of the critic; fourthly, it afforded excellent porter; and fifthly, O reader, thou dost Mrs.Margery Lobkins a grievous wrong if thou supposest that her door was only open to those mercurial gentry who are afflicted with the morbid curiosity to pry into the mysteries of their neighbours' pockets,--other visitors, of fair repute, were not unoften partakers of the good matron's hospitality; although it must be owned that they generally occupied the private room in preference to the public one.

And sixthly, sweet reader (we grieve to be so prolix), we would just hint to thee that Mr.MacGrawler was one of those vast-minded sages who, occupied in contemplating morals in the great scale, do not fritter down their intellects by a base attention to minute details.

So that if a descendant of Langfanger did sometimes cross the venerable Scot in his visit to the Mug, the apparition did not revolt that benevolent moralist so much as, were it not for the above hint, thy ignorance might lead thee to imagine.
It is said that Athenodorus the Stoic contributed greatly by his conversation to amend the faults of Augustus, and to effect the change visible in that fortunate man after his accession to the Roman empire.
If this be true, it may throw a new light on the character of Augustus, and instead of being the hypocrite, he was possibly the convert.


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